“I proclaim it as my sincere belief that any one afflicted with neurotic disease of marked severity, and who has in his possession a hypodermic syringe and morphia solution, is bound to become, sooner or later, if he tampers at all with the potent and fascinating alleviative, an opium habitué. The first dose is taken, and mark the transformation. This overmastering palliative creates such a confident, serene, and devil-may-care assurance, that one does not for once think of the final result. The sweetness of such harmony can never give way to monotony. Volition is suspended. You may not think of it when the pain for which it was taken subsides. But when distress supervenes you go at once for the only balm that abounds in Gilead, and every additional dose is but another thread, however invisible, of which the web is made that binds us fast as fate.” If this be true—and it is true—what justice is there in the charge that these unfortunates continue the use of opium from an innate propensity to evil, or a merely vicious desire? What right have we to set ourselves up in judgment to note the beam in our brother’s eye, when the only reason it is not in our own—when the only reason you and I are not opium habitués—is because a kind Creator has so conditioned us that this physical necessity, and consequent opiate need, does not, with us, obtain? Having thus touched upon the etiology of this disorder, let us reason together regarding the special ethical point involved, and note the reason—if reason there be—for the commonly accepted idea that all men who use opium are liars. While admitting that the habitual need and use of this drug does, in many cases, warrant such assertion, I hold that the leading factor in this moral obliquity is the principle of self protection—the habitué’s desire to shield himself from that censure which the prevalent opinion—uncharitable and untrue—that he is simply the victim of his own vicious indulgence, involves. There are various proofs that this holding is correct, and, too, without resorting to the opinion held by Lahr, Fiedler, and some others, that opium habitués are the subjects of a mental alienation, both in the creation and continuance of their addiction, and therefore absolved from culpable wrong—an opinion in which I do not share. Nor do I believe, for reasons given, with another German observer, that “the morbid craving for morphia ranks among the category of other human passions, such as smoking, gambling, greediness for profit, etc.,” for if this were true, the impulse to protect one’s self would not so largely prevail.